“I’m now neck-deep with ‘Dancing with the Stars’ and trying to balance both,” she told HuffPost. “It’s proven to be quite a task, so this fall is anything but free.”

The 13-track compilation (with two bonus songs) features a mix of classics and originals with guest appearances by Sabrina Carpenter, Trombone Shorty and Alex Gaskarth of All Time Low. She recorded some of the songs live and with a full orchestra, a new challenge for the former “America’s Got Talent” contender. Other renditions feature the familiar electronic sound you’ve come to expect from Stirling.

Holiday favorites like “Let It Snow,” “Silent Night,” “All I Want For Christmas” and “Jingle Bell Rock” fill out the album, alongside three originals, including “Christmas C’mon” and “Time to Fall in Love.”

“Hopefully one of my three gems that I wrote and am excited about, hopefully one of them maybe will maybe become a Christmas classic. That’s the best dream you can hope for with a Christmas album, is that you create something that adds to other people’s memories and nostalgia,” she said this week.

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(Cara Robbins)

For her part, Stirling has her own set of favorite holiday traditions that fill her with nostalgia year after year.

“My mom gets us Christmas pajamas every year, and I don’t know why, but I look so much forward to these Christmas pajamas,” she said. “And we always have a photo shoot — me and my sisters. We put on our PJs and take funny pictures in them.”

In the end, recording the Christmas album has made her “feel like a kid again.”

Stirling’s new album arrives on Friday, but before that, HuffPost has a first look at the behind-the-scenes recording process of the set.